Coppola's 'Conversation' - prophetic snapshot of '70s S.F.

40th anniversary of film illustrates how Coppola foresaw our era

A mime at Union Square (Robert Shields, left) mimics actress Cindy Williams' character in "The Conversation."

A mime at Union Square (Robert Shields, left) mimics actress Cindy Williams' character in "The Conversation."

Photo: Courtesy Of American Zeotrope

Photo: Courtesy Of American Zeotrope

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A mime at Union Square (Robert Shields, left) mimics actress Cindy Williams' character in "The Conversation."

A mime at Union Square (Robert Shields, left) mimics actress Cindy Williams' character in "The Conversation."

Photo: Courtesy Of American Zeotrope

Coppola's 'Conversation' - prophetic snapshot of '70s S.F.

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In Union Square, across from I. Magnin's and the City of Paris department stores, mime Robert Shields works the afternoon crowd, following people around while mimicking their gestures and gait. He singles out a dour-looking man dressed incongruously on a sunny day in a plastic raincoat, who looks distinctly uncomfortable when Shields suddenly becomes his sidekick.

This man, it soon unfolds, is a renowned electronic surveillance expert named Harry Caul (brilliantly played by Gene Hackman). He's been hired by a wealthy and mysterious businessman (Robert Duvall), who goes only by the name "the director," to secretly tape a conversation between a young couple (Cindy Williams and Frederic Forrest).

It's an early scene from "The Conversation," a movie that opened 40 years ago and was filmed almost entirely in San Francisco. I. Magnin's and the City of Paris are long gone, but Francis Ford Coppola's film has lived on - not only because it explored issues way ahead of its time, but also because it provides a rare time capsule of this city during the 1970s.

When Coppola started shooting the film, it was considered in the industry to be his little movie - made on a relatively small budget of $1.6 million - between the first two "Godfathers." But it meant far more to Coppola, who saw it as his bid to create a European-style art-house film like Michelangelo Antonioni's "Blow Up," to which "The Conversation" pays homage. Coppola was gratified that his film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and was nominated for a best picture Oscar (losing to "The Godfather Part II").

Viewed now, "The Conversation" is a profoundly prescient movie, raising issues about electronic surveillance that almost nobody was thinking about in the early '70s, when Coppola finished the script. During filming, news stories began to appear about the so-called burglars who broke into Democratic national headquarters to install bugging devices approved by President Richard Nixon.

These days, snooping has become a part of life. The documents released by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden show that the government's ability to spy even on ordinary folks has increased exponentially to Orwellian proportions.

Today, it is rare for a film to be shot entirely in San Francisco, because of the expense. Coppola used many locations, from the Alcoa Building to Alamo Square to the American Roofing Co. building at 297 Kansas (where Harry has his lab) and One Embarcadero Center (the office of Harry's rich client). Harry's apartment in the Western Addition was chosen because a building next door was being demolished. Coppola liked the documentary feel of its slow demise captured through Harry's window.

Other things seen in the film no longer exist. Because of Harry's paranoia, he will only talk on pay phones, and they are shown to be abundant in the city. To stage a murder, Coppola chose the tawdry Jack Tar Hotel on Van Ness, recently torn down to make room for a hospital.

" 'The Conversation' is a film about an amazing time in San Francisco," said Walter Murch, the movie's supervising editor. "Francis was interested in looking at parts of San Francisco that are not the normal touristy parts but neighborhoods that were just ordinary. The only tourist image in our movie is on the wall in rooms at the Jack Tar - a shot of Telegraph Hill."

Shields, who was cast in the film through the intervention of powerful Chronicle columnist Herb Caen, believes the movie is a snapshot of San Francisco at a particular time. "It kind of showed San Francisco as it was. Coppola picked up that weird energy that was in the air - a magical, innocent energy that was echoing through corridors of buildings."

"There was a feeling in the city at that time of love, peace and happiness," actress Williams said. "It was just a thrilling city to be in."

Early in their careers, Coppola and his close friend George Lucas would often exchange actors. So Coppola hired Williams and Harrison Ford from "American Graffiti." From "Godfather" he cast John Cazale (as Harry's jittery assistant) and Duvall, while Forrest and Teri Garr, who plays Harry's kept woman, went on to appear in other Coppola movies. (The stars stayed at the St. Francis.)

For all the other actors' abundant talent, the movie lived or died on Hackman's performance. Hackman, a sharp dresser and an extrovert, did not easily sink into the role of Harry.

"It was a hard part for Gene to play because it demanded such containment," Murch recalled. "The character is such a tightly wound person, and that is not at all who Gene is. He was operating outside his comfort zone. But now he says it is one of his favorite performances."

Coppola was immediately impressed by Ford, whose role as a henchman for Duvall was initially quite small. "It was clear Harrison was super bright and able to make much more of the character than was there. He knew how to use clothing and props. He was always thinking," Coppola says in his DVD commentary.

San Francisco costume designer Aggie Guerard Rodgers, another veteran of "American Graffiti," recalls taking Duvall and Ford to Wilkes Bashford at 10 a.m. to shop for their characters' clothes.

"We are finishing up and Harrison says, 'Oh, I want these shoes.' The pair he picks up is $475. I say, 'If they are in the movie, I will pay for them, but if they are not prominent, you will have to pay.' "

For a scene calling for him to come down circular stairs at Embarcadero 1, Ford instructs the cameraman to start with his feet and work up.

"I was there and I wanted to just kill him, but I had to pay for the shoes," Rodgers recalls with a laugh. "I knew him to be a supreme brat. He was so naughty and so much fun. I am sure I was in love with him." Ford remembered her and, 19 years later, brought her in as costume designer on "The Fugitive."

Williams remembers a feeling of camaraderie during a dream sequence that Coppola shot at Alta Plaza Park. As the plot unfolds, Hackman's Harry becomes obsessed with the thought that his tape of the couple played by Williams and Forrest will cause them immeasurable harm. In his dream, he runs after Williams to warn her, but a heavy fog makes her hard to see.

Scene with Hackman

This was her only scene with Hackman, and they don't even talk to each other. "He just follows me. I know he is following me. Francis said, 'You are going to go up the steps and turn around and give him a look.'

"Gene is just a wonderful person, and he is filled with mirth and fun. He picked up one of the fog machines (brought in because there was hardly any actual fog that spring) and points it at me and says, 'If I catch you, I get to keep you,' " Williams said with a laugh.

Pacific Heights residents complained that oil from the fog machines was getting on their cars, and they, along with the police and newspaper reporters, descended on the shoot. This unwanted attention prompted Coppola to stop filming after one day of what was to be a four-day shoot, and a scene he had intended to be reality appears as a dream.

Unforgettable ending

Even after 40 years, you are not likely to forget "The Conversation's" ending. It doesn't give anything away to say that Coppola circles back to his surveillance theme and the idea that anyone could be bugged.

"Francis has an artist's antenna, and he was picking up that these kinds of issues would become more important as time goes by," Murch said. "That is one function of an artist - to pick up the subterranean vibes of society and amplify them."

"The Conversation" is now available on Blu-Ray, which includes a short feature on the San Francisco inhabited by Gene Hackman's character. For precise San Francisco locations where "The Conversation" was shot, go to www.reelsf.com.

'Conversational' nuggets

Here are some more juicy tidbits from the filming of the "The Conservation," a movie by Francis Ford Coppola that was shot almost entirely in San Francisco and is now marking its 40th anniversary:

-- As a child, Coppola would make small rudimentary surveillance devices in his workshop. For technical advice on "The Conversation," he brought in Hal Lipset, who is believed to be the inspiration for Harry Caul, the main character played by Gene Hackman. A legendary gumshoe, Lipset was famous for putting a bug in a martini olive and in a bar of soap, which he took into a Turkish bath.

-- By astounding coincidence, a trade show of the latest in wiretapping equipment took place in the ballroom of the St. Francis Hotel during the filming of "The Conversation." Coppola placed Harry in the middle of the show, capturing his displeasure when a competitor puts a pen in his breast pocket that is discovered later to contain a bug.

-- Coppola taught San Francisco costume designer Aggie Guerard Rodgers a lesson about moviemaking that she hasn't forgotten. While shooting scenes at the wiretapping trade show, Rodgers realized that she had forgotten to put Hackman's convention tag on his suit when it came back from the cleaners.

"I was hysterical. I couldn't even talk. I remember Francis sat me down on a coach and told me it was not horrible, that it was going to be all right and I was not going to be fired."

At lunch he brought her a huge glass of red wine, then set about arranging a quick scene of Hackman pulling his nametag off and putting it on a counter. "What a life lesson for Francis to teach me. It was not so much, 'Don't sweat the small stuff,' but 'Understand film people are forever helping each other.' "